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MEERUT To promote the habit of reading and give youths access to study material for competitive exams, a group of policemen and other government officials is on a mission to set up libraries in each village of the country. The group has so far set up more than 250 libraries in villages of UP, Rajasthan, Haryana, MP, Maharashtra and Delhi in a span of 18 months.
Mission ‘ Gram Pathshala’ started from Ganauli village of Loni tehsil in Ghaziabad district in September 2020.
When Lal Bhar, a resident of Ganauli village (who is also working as a deputy SP in the NHRC) visited his native place, a group of boys approached him and broached the idea of setting a library in the village.
Speaking to HT, Lal Bhar said that initially he was taken aback by their demand because no one had ever asked for a library in the village. “I assured them of help and held a meeting in the village to discuss the issue. The villagers agreed to support it”, he said.
Professionals and those who were in government jobs were approached in the village to seek their help. They happily agreed and the villagers pooled in money. So, the library came into existence in September 2020 in an old abandoned panchayat ghar of the village.
Ajay Pal, a teacher and resident of Bambawad village (which is close to BSP chief and former CM Mayawati’s native village Badalpur), also got associated with the mission.
Pal claimed that the library in Ganauli had seating arrangement for 67 people. It had Internet, wifi and a collection of various kinds of books, including books for different competitions.
Lal Bhar said that now the majority of village boys and girls spent their time in the library, preparing for different competitive exams as a result of which they were spending less time on social media and utilizing it for studies.
Impressed by the initiative of Ganauli village, boys and girls from neighbouring village Sirauli also started attending the library.
Lal Bhar and Ajay Pal said that this gave them the idea of replicating the model of self-sustainable libraries in other villages. A team comprising Lal Bhar and other villagers who were in government jobs approached the villagers in Sirauli who liked the idea and within two months they also set up a library in their village.
Pal explained that the group encouraged villagers to set up the library themselves. It never undertook in any financial activity and its role was only to guide villagers on how to set up the library and to make it self-sustainable. “We prefer executing the mission through villagers who are in government jobs because they have greater credibility in villages and their involvement in the project helps enhance trust and credibility of the project,” said Pal.
Mainly cops, doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers and other professionals who belong to villages are involved in the initiative and a separate team of villagers selected by them operates the libraries in their respective villages.
The idea and concept worked and soon similar libraries came up in Sirauli, Chiraudi villages of Loni, Gitayra in Baghpat, Sikanderpur of Muzaffarnagar and in Kalda, Kachina, Kudi Khera, Bambawad, Badalpur, Dujana, Kheri, Acheja, Saini and many more villages in Gautam Buddha Nagar.
The group has now formed a trust with the name of ‘ Gram Pathshala’. Pal explained that it was done only to prevent stealing the name. No one has been given any post in the trust and all are simple members.
He further explained that villagers operated these libraries with their own resources to make them self-sustainable.
The group has now fixed a target of setting up similar libraries in 6,64,369 villages of the country.
SSP of Muzaffarnagar Abhishek Yadav, who inaugurated the library in Sikanderpur in the district on March 27, appreciated the idea.
“They are doing Yeoman’s service to the society and such initiatives are required to attract youths towards books,” said Yadav who also requested the team to set up a library in his native village Deoli Ahir in Mahendragarh district of Haryana.
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